Shrapnel
by countessofbiscuit
Summary: "You still playing house with the General, ner vod? I know you're boots over bucket for her, but you've got nothing to be sorry for. You want sleeper agents? That's how you get sleeper agents. We've still got no visual on Boba. I got enough to keep me up at night without bleeding out over a Jedi." - ARC Trooper A-17 to ARC Trooper A-40, one week after the Battle of Kamino


The baby on Blitz's shoulder squirmed.

The first time he'd held a cadet this small, the erratic movement startled him. He was unprepared for the head to loll around like that, or for the stumpy legs to kick with such ferocity.

That cadet, that smallest of little soldiers, had later gone suddenly still. "Subarachnoid hemorrhage" was the Kaminoan's verdict when she'd placed the motionless body in a bag. An injury from the fall then. Blitz still wondered if he'd been right to pick it up off the floor.

A week later—a week after the attack on Kamino left thousands of little brothers dead or prematurely decanted—Blitz was more sure of himself. He lowered his forearm, the baby's fragile skull cupped in his gloved hand, its bottom secured in the crease of his elbow.

This one was going a little spare, clenching and unclenching its fists as it kicked its legs about and made funny sounds with its tongue. It seemed content. That probably meant Blitz would soon feel a warm ooze trickling off his pauldron and into the collar of his blacks. But there was no wrinkling around the eyes or look of gummy, open-mouthed gall that said baby wanted to test the fitness of his left eardrum again. He didn't really care about anything else.

So Blitz returned the baby to his shoulder, tightened his hold, and continued scrolling through his datapad. His brothers had left behind very messy inboxes, and Colt's pet project of rolling out ARC training to more whitejobs meant reviewing a clusterfuck of SOPs. The Alphas hadn't been designed for admin—or childcare.

They hadn't been _designed_ for anything. Unadulterated Fett, not a nucleotide tampered with, not a gene sequence replaced, except for what ensured they were combat ready aged ten.

But even Jango had asked for Boba.

Blitz mulled that over as he tucked his little bundle closer under his chin and glanced at his companion.

General Ti had a baby balanced under each arm. Her robes and lekku were softer than his plates, which was probably why her tiny cadets dozed soundly as she walked, wedged together on her breast.

Other than her very ashen stripes and the set of her mouth—less serene than Blitz remembered—there was no sign that she'd passed a sleepless week. Her luminous eyes stared ahead, like she was keeping the corridor curved exactly to her will. If she hadn't been a Jedi, Blitz might've assumed Togruta could see in ultraviolet too, given the certainty with which she navigated the city's blank passageways, laid out in myriad arcs and spirals. Blitz doubted whether his body remembered how to walk in a straight line. He hadn't been off Kamino in years.

And at this rate, Alpha-40 would never leave again.

Kamino was officially on the astrogation charts, Republic and Separatist alike. The comfort of concealment was gone. Lama Su could encourage a more rigorous blockade, he could talk about planetary shields till he was red in the fin, but he'd been told boots on the ground were the only answer. And since his planet manufactured them, he should be able to cover his own shebs.

The defensive state of Kamino was high in Blitz's mind as he traversed the halls with the General. Their nocturnal walk had begun in the nightmarish aftermath of the invasion and it hadn't really stopped.

A few infants had survived being scraped off the floor of Hatchery IV and the General tended to them like some kind of penance. Blitz told her he had work to do anyway, and he told himself she needed the company. Her grief—weren't they supposed to be above all that?—and the silence of it made him nervous.

Blitz _wasn't_ doing this because he ached for her to look at him again. He wasn _'t_ sorry for issuing that all-comms ordering cadets to be shot if any organic Seps reached the barracks.

Given what they knew about the enemy's own bioengineering projects, a blaster to the head would've been a kindness.

This wasn't. These tiny cadets in their arms wouldn't grow properly outside their tanks; the thick solution was vital to achieving accelerated development. Their lungs might not have torn and their limbs were all functional, but it'd be months before they could even walk, and years before they could lift a deece. And Blitz had never heard of coddling infant clones into perfect soldiers—though something told him Kal Skirata would've liked to try.

Still, Blitz bounced the baby and stared at General Ti more than he should.

He wasn't above some things either.

The corridor descended towards barracks level. Blitz couldn't say which one. The din of youthful activity crept up to meet them. If the General was worried about the noise waking the babies, she didn't show it.

Blitz blinked, feeling his eyes going dry and cross. How long had he been staring at this datapad?

The wall on their right opened up onto a sleeping hall, the ground level divided by lockers with pods above stacked many meters high. A platoon of cadets, maybe four or five years old, was preparing for lights out, roughhousing and talking as they shucked off their training plates.

Blitz absently noticed their sergeant standing some ways off.

He had his hands clasped behind his back, his fingers fiddling with a ball.

Blitz could've told the General what was about to happen. He could've leaned over and explained in his best _Kaminii_ monotone about how this was standard practice beginning at twenty-four-months; how it encouraged selflessness and reinforced bonds in the unit; how it turned training into habit into reflex—the automatic kind that answered through the cloud of combat.

He just didn't have the time.

The sergeant lobbed the ball among the scattered cadets.

 _"GRENADE!"_

If Blitz hadn't anticipated the sergeant, his own training would've kicked in, sending him diving for the floor with the infant tucked into his chest.

His reflexes still served him well. In the same moment that Blitz spotted a small figure in red catch the ball with his body on the first dull bounce, the General awakened from her trance, spinning towards the cry and into Blitz's outstretched arm. He'd managed to clip his datapad to his belt instead of dropping it on instinct, which he supposed qualified him for some sort of REBF medal.

Now he just needed to prevent the Jedi from making a scene.

What he expected the General to do, or what he could possibly do to stop her, Blitz didn't know. But between her alarm and her misplaced compassion, he suspected she'd do _something_ —toss the cadets to safety with her mind, exert some kind of Force-shield, tackle the sergeant.

She couldn't be seen to _panic_ , however; that would just upset everyone.

The cadets were too busy celebrating the latest platoon hero to notice the colorful General staring at them in wide-eyed distress. Blitz considered explaining the exercise to her, but something told him she understood the purpose well enough. Blitz had only seen a trooper splattered over his squad during an accident on Korassa; she'd survived Geonosis.

As he gently steered the General back down the corridor, eager to move on before the cheering provoked the babies, she finally spoke.

"Force forgive us."

She still wouldn't look Blitz in the eye.

They resumed their walk and Blitz wondered why he craved a sliver of that forgiveness for himself. Was that Jango talking? He hadn't liked seeing cadets killed any more than he delighted in seeing them make a game out of suicide; but he seemed to live with himself just fine, especially with Boba around.

Blitz looked down at the vod'ika in his arms. Maybe he'd been looking for forgiveness from the wrong quarter.


End file.
